The New Yorker - 11.11.2019

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THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 11, 2019 15

1

CLASSICAL MUSIC

New York Philharmonic

David Geffen Hall
Anytime Esa-Pekka Salonen returns to the
New York Philharmonic podium, it’s a cause
for celebration—all the more so when he con-
ducts his own music. He leads the New York
première of “Gemini,” which comprises two
smaller pieces: the brooding “Pollux,” from
2018, and the bristling “Castor,” a new work
formed from material that Salonen set aside
during the creation of its companion. The
concert opens with Hindemith’s sassy “Rag-
time (Well-Tempered)” and closes with his
noble “Mathis der Maler” Symphony; music
by Bach, as orchestrated by Schoenberg, com-
pletes this fascinating program.—Steve Smith
(Nov. 6 and Nov. 12 at 7:30 and Nov. 8-9 at 8.)

“Stabat Mater”
Alice Tully Hall
For all the prominence that the Scottish com-
poser James MacMillan has earned with his
orchestral and chamber music, his choral works
still warrant wider circulation and broader rec-
ognition Stateside. This White Light Festival
program presents the U.S. premières of “Mise-
rere” (2009) and “Stabat Mater” (2015), two
pieces that strike an exquisite balance between
ambiguity and assurance. Both are performed
by the Sixteen, a superb English choir that has
long championed MacMillan; “Stabat Mater”
also features the accomplished chamber or-
chestra Britten Sinfonia.—S.S. (Nov. 7 at 7:30.)

Square Peg Round Hole

National Sawdust
Since its formation, in 2011, the percussion trio
Square Peg Round Hole has pushed the bound-
aries of sound and texture in its performances
and recordings, conjuring an effect that is cool,
groovy, and current. At National Sawdust, the
ensemble creates a soundscape that includes
ambient, electronic, and post-rock elements,
employing everything from vibraphones to glass
bottles, metal pipes, and children’s toys. Before
the main event, the Puerto Rican composer and
multi-instrumentalist Angélica Negrón presents
a solo set, “Sembrar,” which she describes as “a
collection of songs for plants, mechanical percus-
sion, and voice.” Also playing: Negrón performs
in “Isterica,” a multidisciplinary exploration of
the historical and societal context around hyste-
ria (Nov. 6 at 7:30).—Hélène Werner (Nov. 8 at 7.)

Berg’s “Lyric Suite”

Alice Tully Hall
Alban Berg’s “Lyric Suite” was known as a piece
for string quartet until 1977, when a musicolo-
gist discovered a copy of the score annotated
by Berg himself. That find revealed the emo-
tional provenance of the work—a narrative of
the love affair between Berg and his mistress,
Hanna Fuchs-Robettin, encoded in highly com-
plex musical form—and also included a phrase
from a Baudelaire poem, “De profundis clamavi”
(“From the depths I cried”), that intimates the
heartbreaking trajectory of the work. Follow-

ing the discovery, the final movement of the

suite has often been performed with a soprano.

Here, the Schumann Quartet is joined by the

American soprano Tony Arnold, one of the most

acclaimed interpreters of contemporary vocal

music.—H.W. (Nov. 8 at 7:30.)

Strauss and Shostakovitch

Carnegie Hall

The program for the Bavarian Radio Symphony

Orchestra’s first evening at Carnegie Hall shows

two very different sides of Richard Strauss. The

interludes from “Intermezzo,” a domestic comedy

in which the composer poked fun at his own mar-

riage, burst with grand waltzes, silvery melodies,

and musical wit; his “Four Last Songs,” sung here

by the soprano Diana Damrau, is a captivating

meditation on death that he wrote a year before

he passed away. On the second evening, Weber’s

overture to “Euryanthe” and Mozart’s Piano Con-

certo No. 23 in A Major, with the pianist Rudolf

Buchbinder, provide a diverting introduction to

Shostakovich’s intense Symphony No. 10; Mariss

Jansons conducts.—Oussama Zahr (Nov. 8-9 at 8.)

“Akhnaten”

Metropolitan Opera House

The Met was no doubt hoping to repeat the

success of Phelim McDermott’s 2008 staging of

Philip Glass’s “Satyagraha” when it engaged the

director for a new production of the composer’s

“Akhnaten,” which has already triumphed in

runs at the Los Angeles Opera and the English

National Opera. The works are the second and

third entries in Glass’s “Portrait Trilogy,” but

they contain more thematic and narrative co-

gency than their famously abstruse predecessor,

“Einstein on the Beach.” “Akhnaten” recounts

the brief reign of its titular pharaoh, who at-

tempted to institute monotheistic worship

around the god of the sun, with radiant and

numinous sonorities. Karen Kamensek conducts

a cast led by Anthony Roth Costanzo and J’Nai

Bridges.—O.Z. (Nov. 8 at 8 and Nov. 12 at 7:30.)

William Basinski

Issue Project Room

A composer of slow-drifting, ethereal ambient

works, William Basinski taps into deep wells of

emotion in his best-known creations, including

“The Disintegration Loops” and “On Time Out

of Time.” You might well hear portions from

both of those pieces, and much more besides,

during “Durational Performance for Suzanne.”

This career-spanning eight-hour retrospec-

tive doubles as a threnody for Suzanne Fiol,

the artist who founded Issue Project Room, in

honor of the tenth anniversary of her untimely

passing.—S.S. (Nov. 9 at 6.)

“Music from Exile”

Baruch Performing Arts Center

In “Music from Exile,” the Daedalus Quartet

offers a bracing selection of works by compos-

ers who lived in exile from their countries and

their roots. Viktor Ullmann wrote his third

string quartet while confined in Terezín, in

1943, about a year before he was murdered at

Auschwitz. In the quartet’s four connected and

yet distinctly inflected sections, it’s hard to